Little White Lies
by ariex04
Summary: After the first Animagus adventure, the Marauders have some trouble with injuries and staying awake during History of Magic, and Lily gets a glimpse of something she doesn't understand.


Lily stepped into History of Magic. Professor Binns didn't look up, even though it was halfway through class. Everyone else, however, turned to look at her.

She cringed, and sat hurriedly in the nearest open seat. Which, she observed, just too late to do anything about it, happened to be next to Sirius Black's seat. _Just great._

Black glanced over at her. "Evans. You never struck me as the type to skip class." He kept his voice low, but that was the only indication he gave that he knew he shouldn't be talking.

"Career advice," Lily whispered, just to get him to shut up. She pulled out parchment and a quill, only to realize she had no clue what Binns was talking about.

"...cursed Fisher in the back, causing Palmer to support the law..." Binns was saying. Lily blinked. _What?_

After several minutes of listening and flipping through her textbook, she had to admit it to herself. _I have no idea what he's talking about. Which means..._

"Black? What's he talking about?" she whispered. She would have asked someone else, but the only other options were Potter and Pettigrew, sitting in the row ahead of them, and even Black was better than Potter.

"How should I know?" he muttered back. "And keep it quiet, will you? You'll wake Remus up."

Lupin, Lily noticed for the first time, was sitting on Black's other side, head on his bag and fast asleep.

"You're not even taking notes!" she breathed, incredulous, staring at Black's empty desk. "This is going to be on the O.W.L.s, you know!" _I thought that Lupin, at least, cared about his education, even if the others don't..._

"James is taking notes today."

Lily stared blankly.

Black rolled his eyes. "Did you honestly not know that only one of us ever takes notes at a time in History of Magic? We've been doing it for years."

"But that's-"

"Smart? Yes, it is. It means that the other three of us can use the time to sleep or work on homework. It's great."

"It's lazy," she snapped. "What, you think you're too good to take notes?"

"Of course not. I take notes every four classes, Evans. Are you planning on taking any, or will you be copying off your friends, as well?"

Lily gave him her Glare of Doom and went back to attempting to figure out what Binns was talking about.

Five minutes later, just as she found the right page in the textbook, Pettigrew interrupted her by turning around in his seat and whispering, "What's the last ingredient to add to the Draught of Living Death again?"

Black shrugged. "Ask James, not me. He's the best at Potions out of the four of us, remember?"

"He said to ask you because he's too busy making sure none of us fail History of Magic."

"Peter, you know I'm horrible at Potions."

Pettigrew suddenly gave Lily a hopeful look. "Evans? You're the best in our year in Potions, after all..."

"Shut up! I'm trying to take notes!"

"We'll give you a copy of James's," Black offered. "There's this handy little spell we know, too, that'll make you an exact copy without having to take the time to copy them yourself."

She snorted. "Potter? I bet his handwriting's illegible and he takes bad notes. No, thank you."

Pettigrew persisted, "No, he doesn't. Do you really think Remus would be sleeping right now if he didn't know James took good notes?"

Black added, "Look, how long will it take you to answer this question? Two seconds? We'll leave you along after you just-"

Lily elbowed him in the side, whispering, "I told you, shut up!"

He hissed, hands moving to cover the place where her elbow hit, doubling over. "Watch it!" His voice was just a little too loud.

Pettigrew said urgently, "Sirius, are you-"

"Quiet!" Potter hissed, half-turning to look at them.

"Wha's goin' on?" a groggy voice interrupted her.

"Nothing," Black said quickly. A little too quickly.

"Go back to sleep, Remus," Pettigrew whispered.

"It is not nothing," Lily disagreed. "Black, are you hurt?"

"What?" Lupin said sharply, abruptly wide awake. "Sirius?"

"I'm fine," he said, giving her a glare that said _now-look-what-you've-done_ as he hurriedly straightened, shoving his hands into his pockets quickly.

Not quickly enough, though, because Lupin grabbed the wrist attached to his right hand. His _bandaged_ right hand.

"What did you do to yourself?" she whispered, but was ignored.

Lupin let go of Black's wrist. His face was set and his voice tight when he said, "How else are you hurt?"

"Nowhere, Remus, I'm fine," Black said, an odd tone of- _reassurance? Surely not- _ in his voice.

"He's lying," Lily whispered, sick of being ignored. "His side's hurt, too-"

"_Evans_!" three people cried out, and even Binns looked up this time.

"Is there a problem?"

"No, sir," Potter said hurriedly, echoed immediately by the other four.

"Why didn't you tell me about this? Who else is hurt, and how bad?" Lupin whispered as soon as Binns began to speak again.

"We knew you'd overreact, Moony. Peter's a little bruised, but that's all, and it's just because we were being stupid," Potter whispered, all thoughts of notes abandoned.

Lupin was pale, and he looked like he was about to be sick. "I-"

The bell rang, cutting off whatever he was about to say, and Potter, Black, and Pettigrew were the first ones out of the classroom. Lupin was right behind them, with Lily right behind _him_.

"If you're hurt, Black, you need to go to the hospital wing," Lily said before any of the boys could.

"No. No way," he snapped.

"Yes way. If you think you're talking me out of this, you are sorely mistaken-"

"Look, Remus," Potter began, ignoring the argument beginning between Lily and Black, "It's fine, okay? We looked up some basic healing spells and how to conjure bandages and things _months_ ago- we can all do them by now. We fixed him up right away, and you know if it was really bad we'd have gone to the hospital wing-"

"And gotten in major trouble!" Lupin argued. "Look, I don't want-"

"Oh, no I'm not, Evans, because unless you tie me up and levitate me, I am not moving from this spot!"

"Fine, then maybe I will," Lily said stubbornly.

Pettigrew stepped in between the two of them and said, "Honestly, this is really getting out of hand. Look, Evans, Sirius got a little scraped up last night while we were wandering around the castle. He doesn't want to take the time to go to Madam Pomfrey, and he's also worried that she'll ask how he got hurt."

"Here, Evans, these are today's notes." Potter thrust them at her. He and Lupin had stopped arguing, though from the look on Lupin's face, the topic had been only temporarily abandoned. "They're almost complete, only I got distracted at the very end of class, but you should be able to get that information from your textbook or your friends."

"Now, if that's all," Black said, "I want lunch."

The four of them were gone before she could blink.

It was a perfectly plausible explanation...

Actually, scratch that, it wasn't. Their behavior had been practically screaming that this was more important than that.

Lily ran after them. "Hey!" She rounded the corner, following their path-

The hallway was empty, and Lily was left standing there alone, still holding the notes Potter had given her.


End file.
